Interdisciplinary Research

The Kennesaw State University Office of Research launched four Research Communities, which represent an interdisciplinary infrastructure that has the resources to provide meaningful research experiences and workforce preparedness to our students and invite corporate and community partners to work with us toward this goal. These Research Communities below were identified following an internal examination of the university's research strengths.

Research Champions

The Office of Research is proud to announce this year's faculty Research Champions!

These faculty researchers will develop and lead interdisciplinary research cluster teams, assess funding opportunities, and support grant applications. Champions are expected to build and support successful research teams for each track, including other faculty researchers and students. Research success is measured by subject-specific research outcomes, typically external grant support, publications, exhibits or performances.

  • Dr. Mario Bretfeld

    Dr. Mario Bretfeld

    Assistant Professor of Biology

    Born and raised in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, Dr. Mario Brefeld studied Landscape Ecology at the Carl-von-Ossietzky University of Oldenburg. During an exchange year in Colorado, he studied aspen (Populus tremuloides) regeneration in response to different disturbances, including fire and conifer mortality due to mountain pine beetles. After graduating in 2010, he returned to Colorado to pursue a Ph.D. at the University of Northern Colorado in the Franklin lab. His dissertation research included long-term aspen community changes in and around Rocky Mountain National Park, responses to the mountain pine beetle outbreak, and resource sharing through the connected root system of aspen (i.e. clonal integration). He received his Ph.D. in Biological Education in 2014.

    After graduation, Dr. Bretfeld moved to Panama as part of a post-doctoral fellowship with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) and the University of Wyoming. In Panama, he worked primarily in the Agua Salud project and measured plant water use (i.e. transpiration) in regrowing tropical forests of different ages, as well as in a cattle-pasture and a coffee plantation. From April 2017 to July 2019, he lived and worked in Laramie as a post-doctoral fellow in the Ewers lab at the University of Wyoming. Since August 2019, he has served as assistant professor of biology in the Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Organismal Biology at Kennesaw State University.

    Mahyar Amirgholy

    Dr. Mahyar Amirgholy

    Associate Professor of Civil Engineering

    Dr. Mahyar Amirgholy is an Associate Professor of Civil Engineering in the Southern Polytechnic College of Engineering and Engineering Technology at Kennesaw State University and a Research Affiliate at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

    Prior to joining KSU, he was a Postdoctoral Scholar in the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department at Cornell University. He received his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering with a focus on Transportation Systems from the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Dr. Amirgholy is a recipient of the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC) Milton Pikarsky Award for Outstanding Doctoral Dissertation in Science and Technology. His research primarily focuses on the modeling and optimization of large-scale transportation systems.

  • Dr. Victoria LaGrange

    Dr. Victoria Lagrange

    Assistant Professor of English

    Dr. Victoria Lagrange is an Assistant Professor of Game Narrative in the Department of English at Kennesaw State University.

    Her scholarly interests revolve around the examination of novel storytelling formats and their impact on audience reception and participatory culture. Dr. Lagrange’s scholarship includes multiple published articles, including analyses of the transmedia expansions of Bill Willingham’s Fables, the intricate relationship between violence, empathy, and decision-making in interactive fiction, and the study of user reception of video games. Her recent publications include work in Behavioral and Brain Sciences and PloS ONE.

    Additionally, she serves as the director of the Game Narrative Lab at Kennesaw State University, where her team’s focus is on the creation and evaluation of prosocial video games. Their latest game, Corporation, Inc., recently achieved recognition by winning an international critical thinking games competition.

    Dr. Jeremy Speed-Schwartz

    Assistant Professor of Digital Animation

  • Parth Bhavsar

    Dr. Parth Bhavsar

    Assistant Professor of Civil Engineering

    Dr. Parth Bhavsar is an assistant professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Kennesaw State University. His research interests include intelligent transportation systems (ITS), transportation data analytics, connected & automated vehicle technology (CVT), and alternative fuel vehicles (AFVs).

    Dr. Bhavsar received his Ph.D. in 2013 and his M.S. in 2006 from Clemson University, South Carolina. He also has experience in the private sector in developing transportation engineering and planning solutions, specifically traffic micro-simulation projects.

    Taeyeong Choi

    Dr. Taeyeong Choi

    Assistant Professor of Information Technology

    Dr. Taeyeong Choi is an Assistant Professor of Information Technology at Kennesaw State University. Leading the Learning and SEnsing Research (LaSER) laboratory, his research primarily focuses on designing novel machine learning and robotics methodologies for practical applications domains, such as agriculture.

    His research involves the development of data-driven approaches to construct precise environmental models, addressing challenges posed by limited available observations. Dr. Choi’s work is built upon cutting-edge advancements in computer vision, reinforcement learning, and robotics technologies.

    Prior to joining KSU, Dr. Choi gained valuable research experience as a postdoctoral scholar at the University of California, Davis, under the guidance of Dr. Xin Liu, and at the University of Lincoln, UK, supervised by Dr. Grzegorz Cielniak. 

     

  • Dr. Weiwei Chen

    Dr. Weiwei Chen

    Assistant Professor of Economics

    Dr. Weiwei Chen is an Assistant Professor of Economics in the Coles College of Business. She specializes in empirical analyses in health economics and health services research. Her work has covered the effect of health insurance, changes in health care utilization and expenditures, child health, and issues of vaccine uptake. Her recent research focuses on substance use, hospital care outcomes, and health care in correctional facilities.​

    Dr. Chen has served as principal investigator, co-investigator, and consultant on research projects funded by local and federal government, international organizations, and private entities. 

    Dr. Garrett Hester

    Associate Professor of Exercise Science

    Dr. Garrett Hester joined the Department of Exercise Science and Sport Management in 2016. He completed his undergraduate work in Health and Human Performance at Northeastern State University and earned his Master's and Doctoral degrees in Health and Human Performance at Oklahoma State University. He is a 2021 NIA Butler-Williams Scholar and member of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), Southeast ACSM chapter, and National Strength and Conditioning Association.

    Dr. Hester's research interests include the effects of aging, fatigue, and resistance training on neuromuscular physiology and physical function. Also, females' specific muscle health and physiology, and sex differences are of interest in these topics.

    Garrett Hester